5-0 feels good. Michigan fans had to sweat it out on Saturday, even though Wisconsin couldn’t do much of anything on offense. But now that the Wolverines have faced adversity a couple times – being 7-7 in the second half with Wisconsin, being down 28-7 to Colorado – and come out on top, it feels good to know that Michigan won’t crumple in the fourth quarter. Fans were talking on here and elsewhere that Wisconsin was going to get handled pretty easily, but a) good defense keeps you in the game and b) Michigan’s not that great offensively. Regardless, a win over the #8 team in the country – and one who had beaten us up the last two times we played – leaves us looking pretty good to the pollsters.
Hit the jump for much more on the win.
Jourdan Lewis has the best interceptions. Lewis made a highlight-reel interception to seal the game that might end up on the ESPYs or at least on the end-of-season montages of great plays from the season. Covering a slightly underthrown vertical route, he jumped (a bit early) and seemed to hover in the air for a couple yards, eventually coming down with a one-handed interception. It was reminiscent of the way the guy on the Jumpman logo used to hang in the air while switching the ball from hand to hand, checking his watch, punching Will Perdue in the head, and then dunking. That was Lewis’s fifth career interception, and let’s go through the other four:
- Maryland 2015: Lewis makes a one-handed stab of a pass thrown behind him while covering a crossing route
- Northwestern 2015: Lewis goes up to contest a jump ball on the sideline, somehow yoinks it from the Northwestern WR, and then tiptoes down the sideline for a 37-yard touchdown
- Penn State 2014: Lewis makes a pretty ho-hum interception on a ball Christian Hackenberg throws late across the middle
- Miami (Ohio) 2014: Lewis turns around in time to make a leaping interception near the right sideline, the first of his career
Saturday evening’s pick was the best of them all, but he’s got a pretty good highlight reel going.
Wilton Speight makes plays when you need them. Once again, I did not think Speight had a great game on Saturday. He finished 20/32 for 219 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception. That lone touchdown came with just under eight minutes remaining in the game when he hit Amara Darboh on a vertical route for a 46-yard touchdown. Otherwise, I thought he looked a bit shaky and hesitant. He threw a ball into a tight window that got tipped for an interception by Derrick Tindal, and he also threw at least two more passes that should have been intercepted. The Badgers were timing up the snap count pretty well for much of the game, but Speight couldn’t or wouldn’t change it up to keep the defense off balance. He also needs to do a better job of recognizing blitzers and protection weaknesses, and I think there were two occasions where he could have thrown the ball out of bounds instead of taking a sack. The numbers aren’t too bad against a pretty darn good defense, but some of the things mentioned here don’t end up in that stat line.
Have you blocked Michigan’s 2010 kicking woes from memory? If so, you might start experiencing some unpleasant flashbacks after suppressing those unpleasant events for the past six years. Kenny Allen went 18/22 on field goals last year, but this year’s he’s 4/8 after missing from 31 and 43 yards yesterday. Backup Ryan Tice came in for his first career field goal attempt and missed from 40. It was ugly. The Wolverines should have reasonably made two of the three, and this should have been a 20-6 win instead of relying on a fourth quarter touchdown for victory. More demanding fans will say it should have been 23-6. Bottom line: It shouldn’t have been as close as it was. The offense needs to be more productive and keep moving the ball, but the specialists need to do their jobs, too. Unfortunately, Michigan doesn’t have many options. Allen is doing all the kicking duties (kickoffs, punts, placekicking), Tice is untested, Andrew David transferred to TCU, and Quinn Nordin is recovering from a (rumored) hamstring injury. By the way, in case you didn’t remember, that 2010 team saw Brendan Gibbons and Seth Broekhuizen combine to go 4/14 on field goals for the year.
Running back roulette continues. After a game in which Karan Higdon averaged 9.0 yards a carry, scored 2 touchdowns, and got everyone excited, he followed that up with . . . a DNP. He didn’t play at all. Ed Cunningham would say that it’s probably a disciplinary issue. Me, I’m going with injury. Regardless, De’Veon Smith got the bulk of the carries with 17 (for 66 yards), while Ty Isaac carried 8 times for 48 yards and Chris Evans had 8 rushes for 34 yards. A different back seems to step up each week, and this week it was Isaac. I thought Isaac did well in pass protection, he ran hard, and he made some nice cuts. He did almost lose the ball in the open field, and ball security has been an issue for him. After an early run where he bounced to the left but kept the ball in his right hand, I thought to myself, “You could have stiff-armed the tackler if the ball had been in the correct hand.” Later, he did put the ball in his left hand and it almost slipped out. I thought to myself, “Ohhhhh, that’s why you didn’t want to switch.” The last Michigan runner who noticeably had issues with not being ambidextrous was Denard Robinson, who always carried the ball in his left hand (despite being right-handed!) and had fumbling issues because of it.
The Peppers package. I’ve mentioned on this here blog several times that I want to see Peppers play more on offense. He did, but he’s still a decoy. He lined up at Wildcat QB a few times, only to hand off to Isaac. Then he took a sweep handoff only to pitch it to Jehu Chesson for a reverse. The stat line for Peppers on offense: 0/0 for 0 yards, 0 catches for 0 yards, and 0 carries for 0 yards. I understand that all eyes are on Peppers when he’s in the game, so giving him the ball to matriculate down the field might result in a gang of defenders headed his way immediately. But he’s not the first defender to play offense. In five games this season, he has 2 carries for 24 yards. All’s well that ends well, but I think Michigan might have regretted not getting him the ball if they had been on the opposite end of the 14-7 game.
Michigan’s offensive line got exposed a little bit. I’ll admit that, as a coach, I would prefer to face a 4-front defense than a 3-front. It’s much easier, in my opinion, to identify pass protections pre-snap. I knew the Wolverines would struggle with a very good Wisconsin front seven, even though starting outside linebacker Vince Biegel missed the game. Defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox had linebackers, corners, and safeties coming from all angles, and that made it tough on Michigan’s line, backs, and quarterback. But after playing what I thought was an excellent game last week, Magnuson had issues on the right side (more mental than physical) and Ben Braden had problems at left guard. On one play, I noticed pre-snap that Braden took a really wide split from the center and got concerned that it would result in a free runner coming through or potentially a hold if someone shot the gap. Sure enough, a Wisconsin linebacker blitzed, Braden reached out to grab him, and it resulted in a 10-yard penalty. Sometimes linemen play with their splits to exploit the defense in one way or another, but that’s not something I would want to mess with when a team runs a blitzing 3-4 like the Badgers do. In fact, some coaches tell their players to blitz that A-gap in certain situations if the offensive line leaves it open. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that blitz wasn’t called but was an adjustment by the linebacker. On another note, Michigan ran for 160 yards on 40 non-sack carries, so that’s 4.0 yards/carry against a solid defense. Obviously, you want a better performance, but I’ll take 4.0 yards/carry against a defense like Wisconsin’s.
Michigan’s offensive line got hurt. I was very disappointed to see left tackle Grant Newsome go down with a knee injury early in the game. He was leading the way on a toss sweep when Wisconsin cornerback Derrick Tindal went low to take out Newsome’s leg, trapping the lower portion, and hyperextending the knee. Jim Harbaugh said after the game that he thought the injury would require a surgical procedure, and that likely means ligament damage (probably ACL). That type of play is illegal in high school, but it’s totally kosher in college and the NFL. Meanwhile, Newsome’s replacement at left tackle was redshirt sophomore Juwann Bushell-Beatty, and that’s a big concern. In his first crunch-time appearance, he lined up in the backfield twice (yes, those penalties were legitimate) and I believe he got called for holding once (with Brian Griese insisting the refs missed another blatant hold). He has very little game experience and there’s been some question internally about whether he’s a guard or tackle. Prior to the season, there was talk that Ben Bredeson was pushing Newsome at left tackle, but then an injury forced Bredeson inside to compete at guard. With Braden playing the last two full games, maybe we’ll see Bredeson get reps at left tackle again. There’s no question that Bredeson has a higher ceiling than Bushell-Beatty, but can he get ready in the next five days?
I don’t remember this little rotation at linebacker. Of course, I don’t have an encyclopedic memory or knowledge of snap distribution going back to 1937 or anything, but what’s going on at linebacker is very curious. I don’t remember seeing any backups in the game, and the participation chart shows nobody playing behind Mike McCray, Ben Gedeon, and Jabrill Peppers. I thought that Noah Furbush’s return might help Peppers get some rest, but Furbush didn’t play a snap of defense (though he did make 2 tackles on special teams). It helps that Wisconsin struggled to sustain drives and doesn’t operate at a fast pace, but those linebackers literally played every snap of defense. It might be necessary in big games, but I just wonder how the backups will do if/when they’re forced into playing due to a starter’s injury or illness or targeting ejection.
Channing Stribling had himself a game. The matchup of Wisconsin’s offense vs. Michigan’s defense did not bode well for the Badgers, and the pairing of Michigan’s cornerbacks was a big reason why. Wisconsin doesn’t have anyone who can consistently get open, and Jazz Peavy is the only guy with a modicum of speed. Peavy shook Stribling at one point and could have had an easy touchdown if not for an overthrow by redshirt freshman QB Alex Hornibrook. But otherwise, Michigan’s defensive backs were all over the receivers. Stribling made 2 interceptions and broke up 2 others, giving him 3 interceptions for the year (including a TD against Hawaii). He probably should have had another interception, too, but he dropped it. That was a career day for him.
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Harbaugh is probably saving the significant injection of Peppers on offense against Ohio St, but I too am perplexed by how he is being used. It’s great to be a decoy, but you have to put the ball into the hands of your most electric player. Obviously there is a risk of injury, but hey, this is a violent game and injuries happen.
Although Brown was not my first choice as a DC to replace Durkin, I absolutely loved the fact the he relentlessly blitzed an inexperienced QB. That was the big issue that I had with Mattison who would go into a prevent shell far too often for my liking. Hornibrook got hit early and often and never got into rhythm save for 1 great throw.
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I agree that things are probably being built up for OSU and/or MSU, but this was a big game, too. MSU and OSU aren’t quite as important if you go into those games with 1 or 2 losses.
Agreed on Mattison vs. Brown. I don’t think Mattison would have been blitzing at the end of this game.
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Agreed. I think the notion that we still have a lot of our offensive playbook unused and kept secret is silly. Maybe if you’re playing a cupcake your first game and a good team your second, you keep things a little close to the vest, but you don’t save good plays for 11 games. Yes, you give your opponents film, but you also give your own players film to coach them on running the plays better. And even if you weren’t risking a loss earlier in the season by limiting your play calls, do you really want to be running a special play or formation for the first time against a real opponent on 3rd and 8 in the fourth quarter of a tie game in Columbus? In any case, you’re not going to beat a team like OSU with a couple of surprise plays. Whether they’ve seen the plays before or not, it ultimately comes down to athletic talent and execution, just like always.
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Mattison is an excellent coach but his aggression was always overstated. Lack of it was why he wasn’t so highly thought of in Baltimore.
Brown’s the most aggressive DC Michigan’s ever had. Even the ultra-talented 97 defense didn’t blitz this much under Herrmann. This defense might be even more talented (we’ll see how their NFL careers pan out before judging that.)
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Disappointed and a little concerned that we have not developed any new pass-catching options. Harris and Ways are apparently going to continue to be non-factors, and none of the new guys has shown anything. And despite our supposed depth at TE, only Butt has been of any concern to defenses as a receiver. As we saw yesterday, in our game and others, our offense is dangerously underpowered against a good defense. If your QB is not a running threat, you have to be loaded for bear everywhere else in order to beat high quality opponents.
Did note that all of the other teams we’ve beaten so far posted wins yesterday. The Colorado win is going to look better and better as the season goes on, I think.
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Obviously, the best guys are on the field. Ways at best is a WR that run blocks. Harris seems to be an over rated, often injured young man. Unfortunate.
Speight was 20-32 but it felt like a trip to the dentist. Timing and decision making are still questionable. But the kid has stones!
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Speight also has a knack for avoiding trouble when the pocket starts to collapse. No, he’s not a scoring threat with his legs, but he doesn’t seem to take unnecessary sacks.
Through game five it sure seems like the decision of Speight as QB is one Harbaugh made because he had little choice. O’Korn must have some serious demerit against him — really poor decision making under stress, or something. Given what’s on the shelf, Harbaugh must be opting for “least variable” even though the ceiling is not that high.
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I don’t know that we can say anything about the Speight/OKorn decision without seeing OKorn, but Speight has definitely shown some character and ability.
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Yeah, I’m wondering what will happen with O’Korn next year. Will he grad transfer somewhere that he can start, or will he continue to compete with Speight? It must be frustrating, because I do think he has the ability to be a solid starter.
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Honestly, I don’t know how much to read into the WR situation. I think there is a fair amount of talent at wide receiver (and tight end), but the utilization is pretty low. For example, Michael Jocz is playing a fair bit but he’s not being targeted much. Same goes for Ian Bunting before this week. Devin Asiasi plays a fair amount, Eddie McDoom is out there a lot but not catching the ball.
We saw how badly freshman Grant Perry hurt Michigan against Utah, and I think Harbaugh is guarding against backups potentially making mistakes. The truth is that when Chesson/Darboh graduate next year, someone else is going to step in and they’re probably going to play well, whether it’s McDoom, Crawford, Ways, etc. It just seems to be Harbaugh’s way that he’s going to stick with his wideouts without going too deep into the bench. This is anecdotal, but I think someone like Rich Rodriguez played more wide receivers and targeted more of them because they were a bigger part of his offense, but with Harbaugh, it’s running backs and tight ends who see more rotation and utilization.
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This still? We have 3 excellent senior pass-catcher and a guy who is killing in the slot. Why would you want to pull these guys off the field any more than you have to? McDoom and Crawford have “shown something” but they aren’t going to be as good as Darboh and Chesson. Asiasi looks better than any TE I can remember looking as a true freshman. McDoom is getting the ball every game as a true freshman.
This is a weird complaint for an offense that deemphasizes the WR position, especially one where the starting QB is struggling to find consistency and the OL is weak at pass-blocking.
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You keep talking about our “depth” at WR, but I’m not seeing it. We have our starters and that’s it. Perry has had 6 catches in 5 games. That’s not exactly “killing it”. And it’s a silly straw man to imply that I’m requiring McDoom and Crawford to be as good as Darboh and Chesson before I give them any credit. McDoom has 3 catches for 20 yards in five games, and Crawford has one catch for 18 yards. So no, McDoom is not making catches every game (and pass-catching is what we’re talking about here), and no, neither of them is showing much at all yet. Asiasi may have promise, but he has made one catch for 3 yards in 5 games (and btw, Butt had 6 catches for 61 yards in his first five games as a true freshman, and Funchess had 9 catches for 165 yards in his first five games as a true freshman, so you apparently have a conveniently short memory). Bunting has made 2 catches for 6 yards and Wheatley has yet to make a catch this season. For a team and a coach that was supposed to be very TE-oriented, it’s a bit disappointing that Butt, as good as he is, is the only one being targeted effectively.
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Perry has 6 catches.
Our FBs have 11.
Our #2 WR has 13.
Our starting TE has 22.
Less than half of catches are to WRs.
This isn’t a personnel problem it’s the offense.
McDoom plays every game and gets the ball every game. He’s a freshman behind 2 excellent seniors, a proven slot, and immediately surpassed a 5-star recruit (Harris) and hyped backup (Ways) plus a bunch of other recruits.
Asiasi doesn’t have “promise” – he’s good. Right now. He’s a blocking TE primarily but he’s already caught a TD.
Boiling everything down to number of catches isn’t particularly useful anymore than boiling everything a RB does down to YPC. But even if you want to do that — Compare us to Alabama and consider that we’ve been in fewer blowout situations and throw to TEs and FBs way more often. Their #2, 3, and 4 WRs have 13, 7, and 6 catches. Is any sane person worrying about WR depth at Alabama?
It’s a strange thing to complain about IMO, especially in a game that was tied in the 4th quarter. Are backup WRs are playing about as much as they should. 4 guys have a meaningful role in an offense that doesn’t use many.. It’d be nice if Speight was completing more passes to a bunch of backups (I suppose) but it’s far from a problem.
FWIW – you’ll probably get your wish against Rutgers, Illinois, and against BYE.
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None of which is relevant to “depth” at WR, or to my original point about no NEW pass-catching options developing. We have Darboh, Chesson and Butt, who are the starters and who we had last year (and won’t next year). They’re all fine, and I’ve never said otherwise, so not sure why you keep running back to that. And as I said, we’re talking about pass-catching here, and you know that, so you’re just being dishonest when you say that McDoom is “getting the ball every game”, since you know that in some games he has only run the ball and not caught a pass. And is Harris playing like a five-star recruit? Of course not. So why are you playing him up that way except, again, just to make a dishonest argument about McDoom? Same with Ways..who is “hyping” him so far this season? Nobody. And what is Asiasi good at? Blocking? Maybe so, but we’re talking about PASS-CATCHING, dude. He’s caught one pass. That doesn’t make him “good”.
If you’re not going to boil pass-catching productivity down by number of catches or YPC, then I’m not sure what you’ve got left.
And did you really not remember seeing Butt and Funchess as true freshman tight ends? I doubt it. When every argument you make is dishonest, why should anyone take you seriously? You’ll look a lot better if you just admit when you’re wrong and stop doubling down on silly shit.
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a) I don’t think we should confuse Michigan’s lack of targets for backup wide receivers for a lack of depth. They’re two different things. Michigan runs out a lot of formations that have just 1 or 2 receivers, and there’s not a strong need for backups. If you go back to the days of Lloyd Carr in 1998, the top four receivers were two wideouts and then two tight ends/H-backs. Then came running back Anthony Thomas, #3 wide receiver David Terrell with 16 catches, and then #4 wide receiver DiAllo Johnson with 10. That’s how run-heavy offenses go a lot of times. It seems to me that you’re wondering who our DiAllo Johnson is, and that’s not a big concern to me. The guy at #4 or lower on the list who became a star? Marquise Walker, who had a total of 4 catches for 31 yards on the season.
b) I get what you’re saying about Butt and Funchess, and yes, they were more productive than Asiasi. However, both of them were poor blockers as freshmen (and Funchess never got good, while Butt has become adequate), and neither one had anywhere near the talent ahead of them when they were youngsters as Asiasi does now. Funchess was battling Mike Kwiatkowski and Dylan Esterline for catches, while Butt was playing with Funchess. (Both had A.J. Williams as “competition” but Williams was never a receiving threat.) I don’t want to speak for Lanknows, but I think Asiasi perhaps looks more well rounded than those other guys, in that he can catch, block, etc. There aren’t going to be a ton of catches to go around with Butt, Bunting, Hill, Poggi, Jocz, Wheatley, etc. all taking up TE snaps/routes as well.
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You want to only talk about catching passes OK – but QB and OL have a big say in that. As for new “NEW pass-catching options” we have: Hill (@FB), Poggi, Evans, and McDoom.
That’s plenty when you have 4 skill-position seniors returning as starters for you.
Running the ball is getting the ball. The jet sweeps are a major part of this offense and McDoom has taken some of that workload from Chesson, who is excellent at it.
What’s dishonest is limiting WRs & TEs to “pass-catchers” and excluding FBs and RBs.
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I’m much more worried about the lack of backups at LB and CB. Those positions are critical in Brown’s defense and they are going to be ultra-green if starters are injured, not to mention 2017.
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What was the point of the weird, stacked formation prior to the first Michigan touchdown? I saw photos after the game and it’s clear that formation is illegal after the set (didn’t have 7 on the line of scrimmage), so it was really just a glorified post-huddle / pre-snap bit of weirdness. But the offense had to move to its snap position, and was that bit of trickery really that confusing to the defense?
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Oh, and to the more central point of the game … Michigan’s lack of scoring offense was disconcerting. Set aside the missed FBs, bad as those were … Michigan shouldn’t have been forced to settle for 3 instead of 7 that many times in this game.
One of the statistics I’d love to see is what Michigan’s offensive production on first downs has been so far this year. I’m guessing we’ve been facing a lot of 2nd-and-8 type situations. I like that so far we’ve been able to overcome that, but the key is “so far.”
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I don’t know. Like Lanknows said elsewhere, the yardage totals are more telling. Michigan ran for 4 yards/carry, and that wasn’t bolstered by huge runs. We obviously bogged down offensively, but this was strength against strength. Michigan is a running/short passing team, and Wisconsin is a team that stops the run and has good linebackers. If Michigan had the talent to spread out Wisconsin, get linebackers off the field, and open things up, then we would have seen a different game. But I don’t know if the offensive line and Wilton Speight can handle that type of offense right now.
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I really liked their Safeties as well. They were coming down hill pretty hard with a lot of intent.
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Yeah, they’re a good all around defense. Not a ton of weaknesses, although I wasn’t very impressed with Sagapolu at nose tackle. I thought Mason Cole did a good job of handling him, even though he’s 340.
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I don’t think it was that confusing to the defense, no. Brian Griese said something about it on the broadcast, and I think it’s true. Sometimes kids just like to do something different or see something different. It adds a little zest to practice. We do that in high school sometimes. We put in a trick play or formation that might make it into a game once – or never – but it’s fun in practice. With something like that, you just call it for fun. I don’t think it affects anything particularly positively or negatively very much. The one bit of an advantage you might get is if you have the defense taking a second to check the formation and then run right at them, you might get off the ball a fraction of a second sooner than they do. Maybe it’s an extra half-yard gain for the RB in that situation.
Then again, if it works and turns into a big play or a touchdown, it’s suddenly a highlight-reel play.
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I don’t think the defense has to be left dizzy with confusion for the play to be effective. A moment of hesitation/doubt is enough to gain an advantage. It worked. It’s fun. What’s to grumble about?
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Not grumbliing so much as perplexed by the motivation. Thunder’s explanation — sometimes things are done for the fun of it — makes some sense. If memory serves, the next play was a TD by Hill, so it goes down in the record books as a unique Harbaugh-ism and we march on.
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Maybe Thunder is right, but that aside, the play worked. That’s motivation enough. The stereotype of JH looking for every advantage (big or small) seems on point.
A lot of his offense is based on messing with the defense. This is just the latest creative example of the same thing that the formations, shifts, substitutions, etc. are geared at.
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Excellent recap. I have a few additional thoughts and minor quibbles.
-Stribling had a couple of excellent plays (that PBU was great and jumping INT were good) but despite the statistical production I thought he had a mediocre game by his standards. He dropped one INT he should have had and he got beat on routes at least twice. Wisconsin was targeting him. They didn’t have much success, because Stribling is good, but in a game like this he might have been their best hope for a big play. A couple times it almost worked.
-Lewis OTOH had one of his best games, and that’s saying something. The few times Wisc tried him, he let them know emphatically not to do it again.
-The whole Defense was just flat-out exceptional. A good matchup perhaps but the DL did work, the secondary gave few opportunities, and the LBs continued to avoid major mistakes. The one score they allowed was on a short-field. Glasgow was a monster all game. Charlton did well against the guy ranked as the #1 tackle by PFF headed into the game. Thomas I thought had his best game at Michigan (though safety play is hard to assess on a single TV watch).
-The offense was overall I think pretty solid. They put together 4 scoring drives against a top 10 defense, averaged 4 ypc from their backs (compare this to how UM’s run the ball against MSU and PSU the last few years). Speight was his typical inaccurate self (bad) but he made some plays and dodged pass rushers all night long. His ability to escape blitzes is something SPECIAL. I think that word is appropriate. That’s one of those skills that can’t be quantified in YPA or any other stat but it’s real and it’s meaningful.
-Where Jehu at? An extremely quiet season from a guy who looked like a superstar at the end of last year. Speight clearly prefers throwing to Darboh.
-Grant Perry impresses me every game. I was wrong to doubt him this offseason.
-How the hell did Wisconsin seem to blanket Jake Butt all game while firing off blitzes from every angle? Was it the safety play?
-I LOVED the use of Jabrill as a decoy/QB. LOVED LOVED LOVED. This is exactly how he should be used IMO. Abviously he’ll get the ball at some point but this makes it much harder on opposing defenses down the road and keeps him available for his heavy utilization at LB and PR.
-Was Peppers making reads or was it a pure handoff? Looked like handoffs to me, but I’m not an X&O expert.
-Isaac benefited from being the ballcarrier on all those Peppers plays but nonetheless this was his best game as a Michigan back. Good cuts, a few tough yards, and some noticeable blitz pickups. Saw Smith boink one and I wonder if that’s what gave Isaac his chance.
-Nothing to add about the kicking. It needs to be better.
-Allen continues to outpunt his coverage and eventually it’s going to cost M a TD. Coverage has been excellent so far but opposing teams are getting too many returnable chances. I miss Blake ONeil.
-Michigan dominated everything in this game except for kiking and the scoreboard. The yardage differential is a much more accurate representation of what happened on the field. This to probably the second best team we’ll face this season (unless it’s Colorado). MSU and Iowa don’t look so hot with 2 losses including yesterday to Indiana, and NWU respectively. Anything can happen on the road but we’re 5-0 with what looks like one of the 2 or 3 best defenses in the country against a schedule that looks a lot better than it did in the offseason.
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Cross your fingers about Newsome. The pass protection has been bad all year and will be significantly worse without him. The run blocking has shown so much improvement from last year but if Newsome’s gone that may evaporate too. OL depth was one of the biggest roster concerns headed into the year and seemed to stabilize with Bredeson and Kugler but neither was in there yesterday so it’s time to worry.
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Jehu Chesson is having a tough year. He missed a lot of time with a bad knee, and I don’t think he has great chemistry with Speight. He’s also not the most natural receiver, which I’ve talked about since early in his career. I think he would probably be having a better season if Rudock were still the QB, but it’s just a new situation in this offense with this QB.
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How much (if any) of it do you think has to do with opposing teams putting their top CBs on Chesson?
Seems like a disconnect between who defenses see as the #1 and who Speight sees.
I’m starting to buy the chemistry argument.
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I haven’t really paid attention to whether teams are switching their cornerbacks to follow Chesson around or not, so I don’t know.
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On OL, will we replace Newsome with JBB or Bredesen, or shift Cole back to LT and bring in Kugler at Center? FWIW, I didn’t think JBB was terrible: he came in on short notice against a tough D and didn’t make mistakes we haven’t already seen with our best 5
On LBs, in this game and on the road at sparty/Iowa, I think our D can do well even without Jabril. What we need is more touches on O by Jabrill, making plays that Speight & Co can’t
As for the score, my original projection was 24-13, but losing their Kicker dropped it to 7 for Wisconsin, and losing their stud LB led me to believe that was worth another TD for us… make some FGs, or convert any one of the three drives into a TD and my original pick isn’t too far off, without assuming we’d handle them too easily
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I don’t know about JBB… I thought he made a lot of mistakes in a short period of time. I don’t think they’re going to rearrange the whole OL just yet. My guess is they’ll keep him in there at LT or move Bredeson over from LG. If things don’t go well against Rutgers and/or Illinois, then maybe we’ll see a wholesale switch.
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Sounds right, but if we switch now we’ll have two soft games and a bye week before the trip to ELansing. Now may be the time (if it is our top 5)
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Godin started yesterday. Notable in the context of offseason conversations where most expected Godin to be relegated to benchwarmer status in favor of Hurst and Gary and others who questioned his ability as a DT (as opposed to DE).
Whatever he’s doing, the coaches (Mattison, Brown, Harbaugh) like it. It was the same thing last year and I’ll go to my grave arguing that his injury last year was a big factor in the defense declining.
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Very few non-rotation freshman played yesterday. Bush, EMB, Hudson, Bredeson on special teams.
It will be interesting who plays against Rutgers and Illinois. If we don’t see guys like Gil, McKeon, Onwenu, Hill, there’s a good chance they are “injured” and will end up with red-shirts.
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Thunder, If you were the Defensive Coordinator of a future opponent, how would you defend UM if you saw Peppers at QB?
I am not very smart but in this set, UM is going to run the ball so……?
My point being, aren’t we limiting our options when Peppers is at QB?
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I would go Cover 0 and bring the safeties down into the box. I would have the defensive ends stay wide so the “read” is a give to the dive back, because I’d rather have the ball in Isaac’s hands than Peppers’s hands. And I would commit those safeties to stopping the run up the middle. So yeah, you’re limiting your options with him at QB, because he’s probably not a guy who’s going to beat a defense by throwing over the top unless it’s a Vincent Smith-type halfback pass.
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I have a dollar that says there is a pass option built into that package, specifically for teams playing it that way now that the play is on film.
Peppers isn’t a quarterback, but he is an athletic kid. I would have hard time believing he can’t throw a 15-20 yard pass on a rope.
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We had a QB split out wide on those plays. If they don’t want Peppers to pass, there’s always the threat of a reverse pass. Also, Peppers could throw it out to a stacked WR formation on the side for a throwback pass or some type of go route from a TE.
They probably have some type of a QB No type play or jump pass in that package, too. Those passes are pretty safe because you only throw if the guy is wide open and if not you just slam it into the LOS for a small loss/gain.
No need for them to show too much of this against W. OSU coaches are much smarter than me, I’m sure they see all the potential plays we could have out of that formation and they expect at least 2-3 new wrinkles against them. I thought the zone-read worked pretty well against W. If our kicking was adequate, that’s an easy 20-7 win that never feels very particularly threatening.
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Hm. Edit function on these comments please. Apparently I have the grammar of a mediocre high school student.
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I have hopes to add an edit function, but two things:
a) It costs money.
b) I’m in the middle of my busiest time of year, so any significant changes to the site are going to have to wait until my football season is finished.
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Just like ohio did against DRob in 2012
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Re: Peppers, and whether it was a read option:
Based on Peppers’ tweet today, it was a read option, and the DE stayed home, so he gave.
Re: Peppers passing
I knew he played some wildcat QB in high school, but I didn’t know how much passing he ever did. According to one website, he was 4 for 17 passing for 92 yards in his high school career (i.e., less than one pass per game).
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I am sure that most of you saw the Rub route on (Stribling when Wheelright….I believe) caught a passing a crossing route for a first down? How is this not called? Everyone runs a ‘rub route,’ but not to this degree. Stribling was taken out of the play completely!
Help?
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Yeah, it was a pretty egregious miss on the officials’ part. I saw it, too.
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